Sales management · Quotas and targets
Set the season's target from last season's sales and how fast the last four seasons grew.
A seasonal target is the number of units you plan to sell in one buying season, such as the wedding season or the school reopening. You take the base season, add the average growth of recent seasons, and buy stock to match. This page ends with a target sheet and a buying plan.
Scope, fee, reporting and term are agreed in writing after we have read your brief and spoken to you.
In one paragraph
A seasonal target is the number of units you plan to sell in one buying season, such as the wedding season or the school reopening. You take the base season, add the average growth of recent seasons, and buy stock to match. This page ends with a target sheet and a buying plan.
A saree shop in Chickpet places its wedding-season orders with the mills nine months before the first muhurat. The owner looks at last year, feels confident and adds a round number. By March half the stock is still on the shelf. It goes out at a loss. Next year the owner buys light and sells out by the second wedding week.
The growth-mean method replaces the feeling with a short piece of arithmetic. Write down unit sales for each of the five most recent seasons that match the one being planned. Work out how much each season grew over the one before. Average the four growth figures, then apply that average to the most recent season. That is the target. Stock follows from it, and nothing else in the sheet needs a guess.
The owner or buyer does this, with the senior salesperson adding what they know about new styles. Accounts supply the unit counts. Allow an hour once the history sits in one sheet. Finding the old unit counts takes longer than the sum.
This is a target for a single season, not an annual quota, so it sits beside the territory quota builder and not inside it. The attainment dashboard then tracks how the season ran against it.
Where this sits
Topic 9 of 14 in sales management: quotas and targets. Setting targets reps accept and the business can afford.
- The topic before
- Sales expenses
- The topic after
- Forecasting and budgeting
If you want this done for you
The forecast is a feeling, not a number anyone can defend to the owner.
The work
What this is actually like.
“Compare festival with festival, not month with month”
Diwali moves by weeks from one year to the next, and the wedding calendar shifts with the muhurat. Take the whole season window each year, however the dates fall, and compare that window with the same window before. A calendar-month comparison will always mislead.
“Units, not rupees”
Prices rise, discounts change and a rupee total hides both. Count pieces sold. If the product mix changed, split the history by style group so that a shift from cotton to silk does not show up as growth.
“One bad season distorts the mean”
A flood, a strike or a shortage will drag the average down for four years if you let it. Keep the season in the sheet, mark the cause, and decide in writing whether to include it. Hiding it is worse than either choice.
“The target decides the buying budget”
The unit target multiplied by your own stock-to-sale ratio and unit cost gives the money you commit. If the budget frightens you, change the target or the ratio on paper now, not in the shop in October.
What we do
What you end up with.
The documents this topic produces, what each one is for, and how you know it is finished.
The season history sheet
Five rows, one per comparable season, oldest first. Columns: season window, units sold, units of stock bought, units left unsold. Add a notes column for floods, strikes and anything else that changed the result.
Result: Finished when each row's window is the same festival or school phase, not the same calendar month.
The growth calculation
Next to the history, the growth of each season over the previous one and the mean of the four. The target is the base season's units multiplied by one plus that mean.
Result: Finished when someone else can recompute the target from the history with a calculator.
The buy plan
Target units, your stock-to-sale ratio, the stock you need to hold, unit cost and the resulting budget in lakh. Split it between new styles and the carry-over lines that have sold before, using your own sell-through history.
Result: Finished when the budget is approved by whoever pays the mill or the supplier.
The assortment split
How much of the buy goes to new lines and how much to proven ones, with the reason for the split written next to it. Base it on what the last two seasons of new styles actually sold.
Result: Finished when the buyer can say what share of last season's new styles sold through.
The post-season review
Actual units, sell-through and the gap to target, recorded within the week the season closes while the details are fresh. It becomes the next row of the history sheet.
Result: Finished when the new season is entered and the oldest row has been dropped.
Why us
Why owners pick GullySales over an agency.
Marketing and sales, as one job
Most agencies stop at the enquiry. We also fix what happens after it: the reply, the follow-up, the quote and the CRM.
The person on the first call does the work
No account managers in between. You are never handed to someone you have not met.
A baseline before anything starts
Your numbers are written down on day one, so every later report compares against something honest.
The fee in writing, split three ways
Our time, your media spend and production on separate lines. You always see what goes to us.
No guarantees we cannot keep
The term is agreed in writing and never a default twelve months. We never promise a ranking or a lead count, because nobody controls those.
One office, and we say so
Nagarbhavi, Bengaluru. We work across India by call and WhatsApp and travel when a session needs to be in person.
#257, 3rd floor, Sri Nanjundeshwara Complex, Nagarbhavi 8th Block, Outer Ring Road. How we work.
Your brief
Tell us what you need, and we will read it before we call.
Eight short steps about your business, what you want and who decides. Most questions are a tap, and you can skip any you would rather answer on the call.
FAQ
Questions owners ask before they call.
Not here? More answers, or ask on WhatsApp.
What if I do not have five seasons of records?
Does this work for a business that is not retail?
What if the season grew sharply last year because of a one-off?
Is hitting the target the same as a good season?
How much does it cost?
How long is the contract?
How soon will we see results?
Who will actually do the work?
What do you need from us?
What if we are not happy with the work?
Where to go next
The work that carries this topic further.
The rest of quotas and targets
Or read all of sales management.
Your next practical step
Tell us what you are trying to grow, and we will read it before we call.
Eight short steps, mostly taps. Skip anything you would rather answer on the call.